We say...Libraries are key to wealth

"The first project I undertook was the establishment of America's first lending library. When I was growing up, only the wealthy and the clergy had books," Franklin said.

"It greatly disappoints me to learn that this county's public library has had its funding cut so severely and its hours cut," he said through his alter-ego, re-enactor Steve Nousen of Beaufort.

"The public library system in this country has made our citizens the best-educated in the world and this Founding Father finds shortening of library hours to be a short-sighted use of resources," Franklin/Nousen said last week to children at the Storybook Shoppe.

The political landscape no doubt is more complicated that it was 235 years ago, when the real Ben Franklin was a pioneer of public services. But the value of public access to books - and the other educational materials and services offered by modern libraries - is no less important today than it was then.

Beaufort County's library services have been eviscerated and probably will get worse for a long while.

According to local library advocates:

• About one-third of library positions are currently vacant due to normal attrition, have not been filled because of a hiring freeze and will be eliminated from the budget as of next week;

• Libraries are operating only five days a week at reduced hours, which hurt unemployed people most because they have less access to computers when online application has become a requirement for most jobs;

• Libraries can't keep up to date with new books, materials and computers when the library acquisition budget is at about 8 percent (the state recommends 18 percent).

"Obviously this means a degrading of service to the public," said Bernie Kole, president of the Friends of the Library for northern Beaufort County.

And that service touches a lot of lives.

Kole said there are 87,000 library card holders in Beaufort County, which has a population of about 160,000. He said 566,000 library visits have been verified this year by card usage, which doesn't include those who use the library without checking out books.

Politically, libraries are a small percentage of the budget in a county that is committed to a policy of "no tax increases, ever." But old Ben Franklin might have some wisdom to share on that subject, too. Reading, he said, "is truly the passport to wealth."

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